


Linger Longer

by beknighted



Series: Pages in the Wind: Orlo/Reader [1]
Category: The Great (2020)
Genre: Brief Injury Described, Count Orlo x Reader - Freeform, F/M, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Orlo x Fem Reader, Orlo x Reader - Freeform, POV Female Character, Reader-Insert, Romance, Some Cursing, The Great TV Show, hulu's the great, the great, very soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24486448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beknighted/pseuds/beknighted
Summary: “I think you need some fresh air,” you said, looking out of the richly curtained windows at the sky, which today was cloudless. The sight of it filled you with an impulsive desire to make Orlo laugh, to put him at ease, because in truth you also felt overwrought, every nerve frayed beyond repair. You squinted at him. “You. Me. Lunch on the lawn. At once.”“Is that an invitation or a summons?”“Both.”“Very well,” Orlo said, with a nervous laugh, “I suppose I wouldn’t be missed."
Relationships: Count Orlo / Reader
Series: Pages in the Wind: Orlo/Reader [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771351
Comments: 10
Kudos: 50





	Linger Longer

You’d sensed that something was amiss, something that weighed on his mind and made him even more anxious than usual. Over the years, he’d gotten better at appearing at ease with himself, with his little smiles and rolled up sleeves, but you saw it clearly in his eyes: he was a man standing at the edge of a precipice and looking down, uncertain if he could take the plunge. 

As you walked and talked together in the afternoon halls, most pleasant when they were empty and filled with golden light, he’d absentmindedly look over his shoulder. Once, and then again. What was following him? Although you sometimes felt as though you were holding your breath, you never asked, and only offered your arm—it had always been a point of secret pleasure for you that you were one of the few people Orlo did not shy away from. Your intimacy was a casual and chaste thing, but as you whispered and laughed like confidants, you couldn’t help but feel that you were one of the few people that really knew him, or had ever really known him, and that you were therefore inexplicably bound to whatever happened to him. 

When he took the plunge, whatever it was, so would you. 

You and Orlo had been fast friends. A rare thing in the fucking nuthouse that was the court. When your mother had died four springs ago, your father had sent you from your estate in the countryside, and you’d never quite gotten used to the clatter of shoes and voices, the sickly sweet of often unwashed bodies drenched in perfume, the powdered wigs, the shine of blood on silk. You’d started liking Orlo when he hadn’t been quick enough to smother a wince of dismay—the oh-so-refined Emperor Peter had been playing at a game of knife, and an unfortunate nobleman ended up with three less fingers, which were fed to Peter's dog to resounding applause. Particularly unfortunate for the nobleman, of course, because he was a well-known and well-traveled harpsichordist. 

You were the only one that saw Orlo’s loss of composure, and he caught you looking, but you reassured him with a grimace. A clear message of, _“The bastard!”_ And thereafter, at feasts and festivities, the two of you had sought solace in each other’s brief, subtle variations on _“The bastard!”_ expressions (usually with regard to Peter, but bastards abounded here). 

It was a dangerous game you played, but because it was him who played it, it made you smile to yourself at odd moments. 

Now, you sought his company, his rationality, quite literally fleeing the other ladies and their airless circle. It wasn’t that you did not enjoy a bit of gossip now and then, but they had, like bloodhounds scenting a fox, detected your inability to complement their harsh wit. You liked words, and you certainly liked to argue, but they could weave a web of poison for which you lacked the skill—or desire. 

Speaking to Orlo would be like a breath of fresh air. You didn’t particularly care what about. 

At the direction of his manservant, Leskov, you found Orlo in his chamber, where he’d fallen asleep at his desk with his head on his arm. It gave you pause. You’d never seen him this exhausted, but it briefly transfixed you, how years had melted off his face. He hadn’t taken his glasses off, and they were slightly askew. With the softest of motions, you removed them, folded them, and set them beside him on his desk, and turned to go. You’d reached the door on tip-toe when he stirred and awoke with a start. 

“Shit,” he said, looking a bit dazed. “Sorry. Dozed off just then. Is everything alright?” 

You stopped at the threshold, only a little surprised at his alarm. “Of course,” you said. “I hope I didn’t wake you. I was just—well, I perhaps rely on you overmuch for idle conversation, but you are, after all, the only other sane person here.” 

“Ah. I see you’ve spent the afternoon with your favorite well-mannered ladies.” 

“How could you tell?” 

Orlo straightened his collar and gathered his scattered papers in a hurried sweeping motion, stuffing them in the drawer. “It’s an occasion generally followed by some remark on the court’s insanity. I am, as always, flattered that you’ve exempt me from your diagnosis.” 

“Not sleeping well?” 

He stopped, looking at his folded spectacles and back at you, and the energetic mask faltered. There were deeper shadows under his eyes than ever. “I guess not. Does anyone?” Although it seemed a fairly innocuous rhetorical question, it must have struck a chord in Orlo because he stood up nervously, as though stung by his own misspeech. “It’s—I’ve always been prone to insomnia. My mind just doesn’t quite know when to abandon a thought.” 

“I think you need some fresh air,” you said, looking out of the richly curtained windows at the sky, which today was cloudless. The sight of it filled you with an impulsive desire to make him laugh, to put him at ease, because, in truth, you also felt overwrought. Every nerve frayed beyond repair. You squinted at him. “You. Me. Lunch on the lawn. At once.” 

“Is that an invitation or a summons?” 

“Both.” 

“Very well,” Orlo said, with a nervous laugh, “I suppose I wouldn’t be missed. For a little while at least.” 

Secretly, you were shocked. Although he was generally pliant to your suggestions, he must be really fucking stressed; he didn’t seem like the lying-in-the-grass type, but maybe you had misread him. Maybe he laid in the grass and looked at the clouds all the time. (You didn’t think you could bear the keen affection you harbored for him if that were indeed the case.)

“Okay, I confess I am actually completely unprepared for a picnic,” you said, “but give me fifteen minutes and I will meet you on the green, by the fountains.” 

“What should I bring?” 

“Just your absolute favorite book.” 

“You ask the impossible of me. Fifteen minutes to choose my _favorite?”_

“That’s all you’re getting,” you said, backing out of the doorway and damn near falling backwards over a footstool in the receiving room, at which both of you burst into childish laughter that you had clearly been in need of. The weary fog that had haunted his face of late, when no one was looking, lifted. You wanted nothing more than to throw your arms around his neck and laugh in the pure joy of it being a beautiful day, and no one dead or seriously maimed (yet), but instead you rushed away. Probably frightening Leskov in your haste. 

You chided yourself at how happy such a simple thing as lunch with a friend made you, but in this fragrant labyrinth of lies and averted eyes and savage fingers, you took your happiness where you could find it. And it usually involved Orlo. 

You knew he didn’t drink, probably preferring a lucid mind. You yourself did not drink until you came to the palace, but you tried not to do so—at least not to excess—when Orlo was around. You didn’t need to, anyway; your conversations were as heady a concoction as any vodka. 

He was waiting for you under the leaves, where the light was stippled shadows. Unsurprisingly, he’d brought not one book but two, and had spread a quilt, upon which he sat leaning against the trunk of a pine. You ignored the premonition that this was the sort of thing that would be whispered about later that day. Let them whisper! Both of you deserved each other’s companionship. 

You set the basket down with a thud, and Orlo looked up from the page he was reading with an easy smile, his spectacles low on his nose. 

“Late,” he said. 

Hitching up your skirts a little to make a nice cushion, you sat beside him and rummaged in the basket. “My apologies, dear friend. The kitchen was in chaos. Apparently someone had let a mad hog loose inside as a joke.” 

Orlo’s smile broadened into one of his rare roguish grins, and at the sight you almost forgot what you were doing. “A mad hog? An apt description of just the sort of character one needs for entrance into the court, it would seem.” 

Apparently it was a day for the two of you laughing. The sound of it sailed up through the green light under the trees and into the sky, where clouds had begun to drift against each other, but without threat of rain. You unpacked the dried beef and cube of cheese you’d filched, and honeyed fruits, and fresh plum kompot. A humble feast, but you thought of nothing but food and talk for as long as it lasted, and afterwards you lay side by side reading. Orlo had lapsed into silence first. You tilted your head back and looked at his gently furrowed brow, thinking of asking him if anything was wrong, of reminding him that he could always confide in you, but you didn’t. Not yet. 

A tree root dug into your neck and you shifted, wincing. Absently, you felt Orlo’s arm shift behind you, and realized that he was offering it. Was he? You hesitated. He hadn’t stopped reading, but you heard his breath catch, uncertain whether he’d done the right thing.

With your elbows, you pushed yourself backwards so that your head was resting on his arm, and he released his held breath, and turned the page. You bit your bottom lip to hide your smile. As comfortable as the both of you usually were in each other’s company, this was certainly new—he was warm next to you, and you could smell the dusty, inky library scent he was never without, and the subtler, distinctive scent of self that made the twined branches of the trees above seem far away.

A few minutes passed and you lost yourself in Descartes’ Fourth Meditation. Long ago, in the bright courtyard of your home, your tutor had taught you to read at your mother’s behest, and your father, being a man of progressive (albeit mostly private) ideals, had permitted it. Your library had, however, been very limited. Orlo was always endearingly delighted to introduce you to a new classic. 

He closed his book and cleared his throat. “May I ask you something?” 

“Anything,” you said, saving your page with the tip of your thumb. 

“Beware, it’s a self-interested question.” 

“I welcome it.” 

“Do I seem a coward? To you?” 

Of all the things he could have asked. Your heart stirred—in bitter anger, you realized, at the men in the palace and their bloodlust, and their mocking disregard for him. The Emperor, most of all. A thousand things to say sprang to your mind, but you turned your head, and his lips and large, dark eyes and long lashes were so close, closer than perhaps they had ever been, silently imploring you to speak true. You felt heat rise to your cheeks. 

“Those who call you such,” you said, “are below you. You have been working, with a soft cunning of which they are incapable, for better things than they in their selfishness could conceive of.” His eyes widened at this, and he looked as though he was going to speak, but you forged on. “I see a man who has stood up to a tyrant when others sought refuge in agreeing with him. Is that cowardice? Also,” you added, quickly, “you’re fucking brilliant. I could continue, if you would like.” 

You’d flustered him, and he looked away, his gaze unfocused. “No, that’s—thank you,” he said, very softly. “Although I fear I may not deserve your high regard.” 

“High regard? Orlo.” He looked back at you, and you leaned fondly against him, resting your hand beside the buttons of his velvet coat. “You are probably the only person here that I would trust with the defense of my life.” 

He cleared his throat again with a small cough. “I hope such a trust will never be necessary.” 

“Uncertain, with mad hogs on the loose.” 

“Whatever would we do if the beast came upon us right now?” 

“Offer it honeyed fruits to spare our lives.” 

“Alas, there’s none left.” 

“Shit.” 

At least you were laughing again, and Orlo did not reopen his book. Under your hand, you could feel that his heart was racing faster than it ought, and it was a strange, unexpected pleasure when you realized that it was you who made it race so. A bittersweet thought, that your friendship might be so changed that you could never return to your casual intimacy of years past. It had been a very recent change, and the two of you had behaved with a sort of renewed shyness, as though meeting each other again for the first time. Indeed, it was no secret that Orlo had little interest or skill in courting, and you wondered if the fault for any awkwardness was yours, if you had, perhaps, made him uncomfortable with your open affection. Or, although it felt like unfounded jealousy, he _was_ spending a great deal of time with Catherine—but he was your friend, and you shouldn’t pry. 

As if he sensed your thoughts, you felt his right hand, which had been resting on the quilt beside you, tentatively curl around you, pulling you just the slightest bit closer. At last you were touching, your forehead pressed against his neck, where his pulse quickened again. 

“It’s my turn to pose a question,” you said, “and perhaps an impertinent one. If I may.” 

“Always.” 

You could feel the tremor of his quiet voice. For a moment you hesitated, reluctant to ruin a moment of sunlight and warm skin, but the thought of Orlo feeling at all alone was reason enough to try. “You are tired. And worried, of late. Is something wrong? Do you feel that you’ve lost favor with Peter?” 

“I never had his favor,” said Orlo, dryly. “I am a tolerated irritation. To come close enough to someone’s ear to whisper half-truths in it also requires coming close enough to be throttled, as it were.” 

“Then what is it? Catherine?” 

He was quiet for a moment, and you cursed your curiosity.

“We’re not—it’s not as though—” 

“It’s alright,” you said, waving your hand as though to dismiss the very notion. “I’m sorry. It is not my place to ask.” 

“But it is,” Orlo said, and although you couldn’t see his face, you knew by his tone that he was frowning, just the slightest pursing of his lips. He grew so quiet that you could not have heard him, had you not been so close. “I cannot claim much knowledge of these sorts of things but you have every right to ask. If we are—well. I don’t know. I must seem a fool to you,” he murmured. “I fear I lose all command of intelligent speech in your company.” 

Another of his nervous laughs, and you held the lapel of his frock coat, shutting your eyes tightly. If he wouldn’t speak of what was troubling him, then it was political trouble rather than philosophical or personal, and if he wouldn’t trust you with it (as he trusted you with so many of his darker remarks, in private and candlelit places with only books for an audience), then it was because he thought it might seriously endanger himself, or you. Whatever he had waded into, you were reminded with stunning clarity that he was as vulnerable and gentle and sincere a man as you had ever met, and that you would bind your courage to his, if he would let you. 

To hell with everyone else. 

You opened your eyes and propped yourself on one elbow, and cupped his face with your right hand. His skin was soft, and his eyelids fluttered under his dark brows, at the lightest touch of your fingers. He looked up at you as though somewhat astonished, and you brushed a strand of hair out of his face, prompting a small smile. You might have imagined it, but he seemed to lean into your touch, as one who had not felt gentleness in untold time. 

When you spoke again, you breathed the same air, your lips dizzyingly close together. 

“My last impertinent question, I promise,” you whispered. “Our friendship keeps me sane in this place, Orlo, and I would not see it lost because I act out of turn. Is this—do you—?”

“Yes,” Orlo said, but no sound came out and he had to try again. “Yes. Do you?” 

“Yes.” 

“What a superbly eloquent pair we are.” 

The world swayed, and the wind in the trees rose to a crescendo of whispers. Thereafter, it was uncertain who moved first, but one way or another your lips met, and tasted like honey and secrets and warmth, and his hand which had been around your waist tentatively held you, and it was sweeter and far less clumsy than you’d thought. Your mind went utterly blank. You remembered to breathe, finally, and so did he. 

Whatever strangeness, gore, or debauchery the court would yield later that evening, you would be sustained by this moment for days, for weeks, as though by a flame cupped in your hand against the dark. The sound of pages turned by the wind. How tightly he held you, how bright the sunlight amid the leaves. 

You took a deep breath. “Whatever’s coming, you needn’t face it alone.” 

“I know. You are my courage.” 

“No,” you said, laying your hand on his heart, the strength of which he so vastly underestimated. “But I am with you. Until the end. Whatever that may be.”


End file.
